


An incomplete list of things that Helen Justineau wonders

by panickyintheuk



Category: The Girl with All the Gifts (2016), The Girl with All the Gifts - M. R. Carey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-20 15:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17025582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panickyintheuk/pseuds/panickyintheuk
Summary: But then Pandora peered into the box and found one more thing in the bottom.In this analogy, you open the box and you find yourself there.





	An incomplete list of things that Helen Justineau wonders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DragonSteel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSteel/gifts).



> Thanks so much to my beta, carlyinrome!

An incomplete list of things that Helen Justineau wonders:

**1\. When did Melanie stop looking at her as if she were Jesus?**

Probably around the time that Melanie realised that that’s the way the other children looked at _her_. That’s if you can call them children (Helen doesn’t mean that the way that Caldwell would have meant it. She just means they’re hardly children anymore. They’ve grown up).

It’s not just the children from Echo and the gang that killed Kieran anymore. Beacon may have fallen, but the BT Tower is New Beacon now. The spores attract the symbiotes (that’s what they call themselves—or that’s what Melanie calls them, and the rest follow suit). There were gangs around the country—feral gangs like the ones Melanie found, and others found and raised by junkers. They came, and Melanie found them and gathered them.

The junker symbiotes are somewhere between the feral gangs and the Echo children. The junkers kept them more as slaves or guard dogs than as children. But all the junkers must be dead now. Mustn’t they?

**2\. How far can the spores travel?**

The furthest group of junker children came from somewhere around Birmingham, she thinks, but she can’t really tell for sure. Nobody uses the old place names anymore, and junkers are always on the move, and anyway, they didn’t tell the symbiote kids much. It’s impossible to tell where the feral gangs came from—could be Scotland, for all Helen knows. Could be closer. Leeds, maybe, where Helen was born. Maybe they were born in the same hospital as her, where they ate their way out of their mothers.

Helen was premature; she lived in an incubator for weeks. Needless to say, she doesn’t remember it, but maybe it was fate that she should both begin and end her life living in a box.

**3\. What do they do when they leave?**

Helen knows some of it, of course; they go out looking for food, for them and for her. There’s enough food stockpiled in warehouses in tins and pouches for more than one lifetime. If it weren’t for Melanie she knows they wouldn’t bother, even the Echo children. They’d let her starve—or, more likely, they’d eat her and save themselves a trip. Every so often they go and loot a warehouse and bring enough back to last for months, so most of their trips are for them.

Humans wiped out most of the other large predators from Britain—there used to be wolves and bears and lynxes, but they’re all gone now. Without humans to cull them, and with most of the hungries either concentrated into large groups in the cities or already… sprouted, prey animals like deer and rabbits must be abundant. She thinks that’s probably what the symbiotes are eating, when they get tired of pigeons and rats. There’s the odd dog or cat around that’s managed to survive this long, but there can’t be enough to go around.

She doesn’t know if they use traps or spears or bows and arrows, or if they found guns somewhere (guns are one thing, ammo is another—hard to come by. If they ever did use guns, they probably don’t anymore). Maybe they use endurance hunting—it must be easy for them. They don’t have to breathe as often, and they don’t get tired until they’re full.

Whatever they use, they probably aim to incapacitate instead of kill. They prefer to eat things alive.

**4\. How long can they go without eating?**

Hungries can go indefinitely, she thinks—the ones in London couldn’t have eaten for years, surely? Unless they were eating rats, but it didn’t look as if they were. But maybe symbiotes are different. How did the feral children survive once they’d eaten as much of their mothers as they could? Does the fungus help them to develop more quickly than human infants? Does it allow them to supplement their nutrition with photosynthesis? If Caldwell knew any of this, she didn’t share it, but anyway, she was always single-minded. She wanted her vaccine; any data she gathered was in service of that goal.

Even if the symbiotes can go for long periods without eating, Helen wouldn’t want to suggest it. Quite apart from the ethics of it, they start to lose control very quickly when they’re hungry. They can’t smell her in here, but they don’t need to. They ate Kieran when he was covered in blocker gel; they already know she’s made of meat.

**5\. Are there any humans left out there?**

In other countries? In _this_ country? She knows Beacon fell, but there were other bases. But the spores—see #2.

And then there’s the junkers. Are the junkers all dead? What if some of them were pregnant when Melanie set fire to New Beacon, and there are second generation—symbiote—babies out there now? She’s mentioned this idea to Melanie. “Maybe,” said Melanie. “We haven’t seen any.”

“Have you seen any humans?”

“No,” said Melanie. “Sorry, Miss.”

**6\. Can symbiotes reproduce?**

If they can, it won’t be long. Some of them are hitting puberty already, or what you’d call puberty in a human child. What could the third generation look like? More symbiotes, or something new? Maybe the third generation will destroy the second, and everything will come full circle. What will happen to Helen then?

**7\. How long do the spores stay in the atmosphere?**

This is an argument they’ve had too many times to count. Helen says it must be safe out there by now; Melanie says they don’t know that for sure, and anyway, Miss (still Miss, even after all this time), even if the spores are gone, Melanie can’t guarantee the other symbiotes won’t—

Helen says of course you can, they do whatever you tell them to; I can’t guarantee it, Miss, says Melanie, and anyway, Miss, what about the hungries?

There are no hungries around here, says Helen, they’ve all turned into seed pods. Not all of them, Miss, says Melanie, and anyway—

Anyway, Miss, anyway. There’s always something else. A million horrors out there, and just one thing left in the box.


End file.
